Green L.A., once described as "the big environmental coalition you never heard of" by environmental blogger Siel "Green L.A. Girl" Ju, has a number of committees that try to tackle the big issues in Los Angeles. Thanks to the efforts of Joe Linton, the chair of their transportation committee, they are taking their transportation-related efforts on line.
While the Green L.A. Transportation Working Group's blog hasn't been updated in a couple of weeks, due in large part to Linton's need to update his other blogs and rehears for an upcoming play, the May 12 post on embracing Complete Streets is worth a look. In it Linton proposes that instead of battling for individual projects and promoting our favored mode of transportation that we should instead push for reforms that would remake out car sewers into Complete Streets. And then, he asks for our help:
This is where we need to hear from you. GLATWG has suggested usingcomplete streets as a way of framing our demands. All of our campaigns– from bus-only lanes to parking reform to tracking modal share – canbe seen as parts of a larger overall campaign.
Should GLATWG push for the city of Los Angeles to adopt an explicitComplete Streets policy? Should it be done legislatively (via the CityCouncil) or via executive order (via Mayor Villaraigosa)? What shouldsuch a policy include? How can we make it most effective?
If you have recommendations, ideas, examples, concerns, please addthem to the comments on this post. Please include links to samplepolicies, images, ideas, etc. Thanks!
I think it's a good idea to try and link various transportation projects into a larger issue, like the reclaiming of our streets. The support of large and well-organized environmental groups can only help us get the ball rolling.